2023 Climate Physics excursion to Venice and Austria
In the afternoon of 28 August, 18 Climate Physics MSc Students and IMAU researcher Erik van Sebille gathered at Utrecht central train station to take a bus. A long drive was ahead of us, as the expected duration of this trip was about eighteen (18!) hours. The destinations of this year’s excursion were Venice and Austria. The expectations were high, as we had been invited to the Italian Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR) and the beautiful Sonnblick observatory in Austria.
After a long night, we woke up in Italy, still on the bus. Driving through the Po Valley we received the bad news: the code red rain events that had kept us awake at night, but that our bus driver had carefully navigated us through, had flooded the road in the valley leading up to Sonnblick. The email contained words like “Katastrophen Stufe 5....leider ...alles kaputt....Strasse weg”. Visiting the observatory was clearly not an option anymore.
Luckily, we still had three days in Venice ahead of us. Sleep deprived but optimistic we ventured into the city and from the vantage point of San Marco's bell tower, we watched a beautiful, heavy rain storm roll over us (Figure 1). Francesco Falcieri, the lovely head of ISMAR, had arranged a program centred around the tidal conditions and forecasts for the city of Venice. In the next two days we visited the municipal tidal forecast centre, the MOSE (tidal gates) control room, and were guided through the city in an ecology tour, clearly showing the long term impacts of aqcua alta (high water). After these busy days we ventured into town, experienced Venetian night life, and were able to experience acqua alta on San Marco’s square first-hand (Figure 2).
Our bus driver collected us and took us to the Austrian village of Bad Gastein for a rest day. On this day most of us went on a hike and enjoyed the views in the beautiful Austrian Alps. This is also where we traded Erik van Sebille for Maurice van Tiggelen, postdoc at IMAU. In the original plan, the next day we would have headed up to the Sonnblick observatory. Thankfully, Maurice had been able to arrange a last-minute tour on the Pasterze Glacier, which many at IMAU are very well acquainted with. For many of us it was the first time that we had our two feet on a glacier, and seeing how much the glacier has receded in the last century was extremely impactful to the whole group (Figure 3).
Cold but satisfied we left for the last stop on our trip: Innsbruck. Since this was the last day of the excursion, we had our last two communal dinners and explored the city on our own during night and day. Overall, the excursion brought the group closer together and added invaluable experiences to our master’s programme.
Koen van der Heijden, Verena Mülder, Floran Brinkman, Ezekiel Djeribi Stevens
